


Whale Bones

by naeildo



Category: TWICE (Band)
Genre: Parallel Universes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-13
Updated: 2020-05-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:06:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24163327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/naeildo/pseuds/naeildo
Summary: This could be the beginning.
Relationships: Hirai Momo/Myoui Mina
Comments: 3
Kudos: 67





	Whale Bones

**Author's Note:**

  * For [long_live](https://archiveofourown.org/users/long_live/gifts).



This could be the beginning:

Momo has a shitty apartment in this one. The roof leaks half the time, and Momo’s quite sure there’s a rat infestation. Her landlord always calls her every Wednesday to hound her for the rent, and she apparently isn’t making all that much by being a freelance dancer at the cabaret shows down the street.

Mina finds her then, after another show to a half-empty audience, Momo washing the grime out of her hair and pulling on a sweater, opening the door to find Mina standing on the other side of it. There’s a storm on the horizon, already, and Mina only laughs as she takes a look around the apartment. 

Mina says this first:

“You should be careful about opening the door for strangers.”

Momo says this first:

“Your hair is orange.”

_ Orange  _ is a long, gruff-sounding word in English. Momo can’t really remember the Japanese pronunciation for it, though it’s surely settled in her bones somewhere. This is the first time they’ve been outside of Japan, and maybe Mina doesn’t even speak Momo’s language. She can never be too sure of that, doesn’t know what the precedent would be for that.

“You aren’t going to tell me that I took a long time?”

Momo flops back down on her couch, which has been placed strategically so it always stays dry. Mina sits down beside her. 

“You’re rich again?” Momo asks, because Mina’s carrying a bag that looks so innocuous to be anything but worth a thousand dollars by itself.

The numbers on Mina’s wrists are fading, turning violet from their black and blue the closer she hews towards Momo.

“Yes,” Mina says, laughing. Folds herself into Momo’s hold, in her large, warm sweater that she hasn’t washed in days.

Mina took a year, this time. America is big, and Texas, Momo discovers, isn’t very close to Maine, and America isn’t as familiar as the country they already both know by heart, somehow. Momo thinks Mina might fall asleep, in the rain that’s starting to sweep in through the cracks. Mina’s always been fond of dreary things. 

Momo slides a quiet hand down her face, and Mina blinks awake, bright eyes flickering under the ceiling light.

“Sharon,” Momo says, without thinking, and it shouldn’t surprise her, but it still does, that she hasn’t had to ask her name. Not even in this universe. 

Mina’s thumb is rubbing soft circles into the inside of Momo’s wrist. “It’s a nice name.”

“I think so too,” Momo says, dropping a kiss atop Mina’s head. “Also, can you help me pay my rent?”

*

The first time it happened, Momo had played in the rain with Mina the whole night, until her father had cradled her back into the apartment and up the stairs, dunking her in a warm bath with only half a heart to scold her.

And then Momo had drifted off to sleep.

“Momorin,” Hana called, from beside her, when Momo had startled awake. Hana’s hair had grown long overnight, falling at her waist when yesterday it stopped at her shoulders. Her room was so big, and so bright, as the morning sun streamed in, and the trees that never used to be outside her window rustled.

“Hana,” Momo tried, and felt something inside her pull apart when Hana nodded.

“Hana,” Momo said, again and again, into her older sister’s chest, until she stopped sobbing. Until she was brought down the stairs to meet her parents, with their new haircuts and new ways of speaking, until the enormous house they were in became her new reality.

  
  


Mina had walked into her class in the middle of the semester. Transferred over from another prefecture, and Momo knew, somehow, the moment she saw the penguin backpack slung over her small shoulders.

It would be strange to ask someone you’ve never met here whether they remember you. Momo had tried it, with her other friends, and they’d just stared at her in confusion, and Momo didn’t really know how to explain it, not really. Didn’t quite understand it herself.

Mina was sitting by herself on a bench during lunch break, and Momo had ambled over to bring her into the gaggle of children pushing each other into piles of sand in the play pen.

“I remember you,” Mina said, before Momo could say anything else.

Momo blinked.

“I remember you, Hirai Momo,” Mina said, voice sure even as it was soft. Steady even as it was young.

“I remember you too,” Momo allowed herself to say. She didn’t think Mina was crazy, because then she would be, too. And then Mina had smiled, like the first rays of sunlight after the night had passed away and became new, and Momo reached for her hand first, to pull her into the fray.

*

When Momo is twenty-eight, she wakes up in Harajuku. Hana isn’t in some other room of the apartment for the first time, and she walks out to a small kitchen with a pile of unwashed dishes sitting listlessly in the sink. Mina lives next door.

They’re having katsudon today. 

“I think I’m starting to figure this out,” Mina tells her, in the middle of whisking the egg yolk into the white. She’s rolled her sleeves up, and Momo can’t help but look. Mina has more meat on her bones in this universe, lean muscle that seems to extend forever. Momo does administrative paperwork for a dead-end company that she thinks might fold at any moment. 

Mina gets to be a successful ballerina.

“What?”

“This thing,” Mina says.

“What?”

Mina cocks her heat at Momo. 

“Us.”

“Are you asking me out?”

“Momo, aren’t you curious about this - this thing?”

Momo knows what she’s talking about. She flips the cutlets in the pan. Bites the inside of her cheeks. “Not really.”

“I think we’re always meant to find each other, and it’s some kind of - it’s like a video game. A quest.” Mina’s taken recently to playing with her big, bulky gameboy and a game with pocket monsters that Momo only half-understands.

“Okay,” Momo says. Flips the cutlet again.

*

“I think you’re never getting rid of me,” Momo tells Mina. They’re fifteen and sitting cross-legged on the swing seats, Mina nearly toppling over at random every time Momo jostles at her chains. Mina’s birthday is coming soon.

_ “Stop that,”  _ Mina tries to protest, but it comes out wrong, high-pitched and crackly, and Momo just laughs more and more, shaking the chains until Mina jumps off and tackles her onto the soft ground.

“Momo,” Mina asks, after they’ve grown tired of giggling into each other’s shoulders and gathering dirt in their hair.

Momo hums.

“Are you scared?”

They’ve contorted themselves so they’re looking up at the sky, backs pressed against the wet earth, Momo’s hand cradled loosely in Mina’s own. Momo can see the clouds stretching on into forever - they look the same, in every universe. 

Mina’s hand is very warm in her own, and Momo can feel her pulse. Or thinks she can feel her pulse. They’re connected, somehow, Momo already knows. So she says:

“Not really.”

*

Seoul, one winter’s morning:

“Don’t you think it’s a little unfair that I’m always the one looking for you?”

“A moving target is more difficult to hit,” Momo offers.

Mina laughs. “I think I'm going to stay still the next time.”

Momo tucks Mina’s hair behind her ears at the same time that Ray pads up before them and stares at them with plaintive eyes. Mina splayed out across Momo’s lap doesn’t give him enough space to cuddle in too.

Ray was with them two cycles ago, and Mina was allergic to dogs the previous one. Even then, she’d still dragged them to multiple animal shelters before deciding on a small dog that made her sneeze all around the house. They’d found Ray wandering outside their house, in this universe, far bigger than they’d remembered and crippled in one leg.

“Do you think he remembers us?” 

Mina reaches for Momo’s hands. They’re a little cold, still, even with the heater on, but Momo doesn’t startle at all, just pulls her in closer.

“He must,” Mina says, softly. Closing her eyes as Momo presses careful fingers to her jaw. “That’s how he found his way home.” 

*

This time, Momo finds Mina while evacuating a torrential rain. The shelter is small, between the two of them, and Mina looks so much - older. The laughter lines are starting to show at the corners of her eyes, and Momo wants to reach out to smooth them away. Or kiss them.

Mina’s eyes are bright when she finally spots her, too. There're crackles of thunder everywhere, and Mina is opening her mouth, but Momo can barely hear anything, just reaches to sweep the damp hair out of Mina’s face.

Later, by the heater, Mina doesn’t ask her anything. Not where she’s been for the past seven years, or whether Momo had tried to look for her.

“Who was the king? In your universe.”

Mina looks up. She’s not startled, but there’s something else there, a crooked smile that settles every anxiety in Momo’s chest. Knits her bones together and makes her whole again. Mina reaches for Momo’s hand, and it’s coarser than it’s ever felt. Every universe is a new chance to explore the tender skin of Mina’s wrist, the way she smiles when Momo kisses her shoulder. Momo had almost forgotten.

“How did you know we were in different ones?”

“I didn’t,” Momo says, honestly. 

“It’s like a video game,” Mina says, softly, even as she’s smiling. “We leveled up, so it’s harder now.”

Momo’s socks are wet. Mina will buy new ones for her, later, scroll through the pages on her laptop and point out the ones with Momo’s favourite characters on them. Would Mina still remember?

“Don’t you have a cheat code?” Momo asks, because it’ll make Mina laugh, and because she wants to know, too. Whether she’ll ever have to spend seven years without Mina again.

“We had no king,” Mina offers, finally. 

Momo closes her eyes. “I didn’t stay still. I looked for you.”

Mina is pulling Momo’s fist into her hand, and Momo finds that she doesn’t want to unfurl it. Mina’s hands are still small, even if they aren’t smooth like they were. Leans down and presses a kiss to Momo’s knuckles, and Momo only allows herself to feel it, at first, because the sight of it might be all too much.

“Did you wonder?” Mina asks. The ends of Momo’s jacket are starting to dry. “Whether I’d given up?”

Momo can be infinitely honest, looking down to meet Mina’s gentle, ready gaze.

“Never.”

*

This could be the beginning:

“That was really nice,” a voice says, in Kansai-ben, as Momo is finally -  _ finally  _ \- allowed to leave the engagement area. She’s never been great at explaining her pieces, and she gets even worse at explaining them in English because of the nerves, so she’s spent the whole evening saying the words “fate” and “inevitability” while people nodded politely back at her. Momo doesn’t need to turn, really, to know its owner.

“And it felt so personal.”

Mina’s smile is always the same. She’s holding a tall wine glass that Momo takes easily from her hands and downs in one shot.

“It was only loosely based on us,” Momo says, just to combat Mina’s ego.

Mina places the wine glass back on the table and hands Momo a bomber jacket. Momo likes walking home, after her shows, even if it’s miles and miles away. It feels nice to have the wind on her skin. The glass doors of the atrium open into a long, steep flight of stairs that Momo always wonders if her hips can handle anymore.

“I taught you one of those moves,” Mina says, softly. It’s too warm to be anything but fond, and Momo can never deny her anything, even after all these years. 

“Just the one,” Momo indulges, and watches Mina’s hair fly up in tendrils in the breeze as she starts to smile.

*

Or maybe this:

Today it is a house by the sea. Mina’s feet had gotten wet, on the way to their doorstep, and the effort of the journey had started to take a toll on her hip. It’s silly, all these little things, and Mina wonders if Momo knows how to swim in this one as she idly makes her way to the house. They have all the time in the world, now.

“I found you,” Mina breathes, looking straight ahead at Momo. Momo, squinting against the setting Hawaiian sun. 

Momo is reaching out to cradle Mina’s cheeks, light pink dusting her own. The effort of the day, whatever it was, whatever it has been - 

“You didn’t have to walk so close to the shore,” Momo scolds, but she’s always been so bad at sounding cross. All Mina really sees is her warm, weathered smile.

Mina makes a show of shaking the water out of her rattan slippers.

“They’re very nice. Did I buy them for you?”

Momo couldn’t have, and she knows this as well as Mina does. Still, Mina nods indulgently, stepping closer to where Momo is. There’s a different kind of familiarity to their bodies here, but the gentle hand that Momo places on her elbow that feels like it always has.

“I was smart,” Momo says, smiling into Mina’s shoulder. The sun is setting, and the moon is rising, and Mina listens to the waves, heavy as they leave the shore. Mina cards careful fingers through Momo’s hair. It’s short and jet black in this one, stops just above her shoulders, dry and scratchy under Mina’s hands.

“You didn’t even bathe,” Mina sighs. Momo is looking at her quietly. 

“I had a feeling,” Momo returns, petulant. Lips twisting into a frown. “That today would be the day.”  _ Forgive me,  _ Momo means, even if there is nothing to forgive. 

Mina opens the screen door. Tangles her fingers with Momo’s as they step across the threshold, Momo’s palm soft against her own, seawater lingering on her skin. Momo must have just toweled down and then sat there on the veranda, waiting. 

“You always have a feeling.”

**Author's Note:**

> [the old man and the sea](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUAAeoRC96U)


End file.
